By now, you know about the explosive dossier authored by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, which claims to outline evidence that Donald Trump was severely compromised by Russia. While American intelligence has yet to confirm allegations that Trump engaged in graphic sex acts–including “golden showers”–they have been able to confirm a number of Steele’s other findings. They know, for instance, that a number of conversations described in the dossier actually took place, and that a former Russian diplomat was actually a spy who was heavily involved in the Kremlin’s effort to hack the presidential election.
Even before then, they were concerned enough about the information detailed in the dossier that they warned Israeli intelligence not to share information with Trump, and used it to persuade a FISA court to allow covert surveillance of one of Trump’s top aides, Carter Page. A number of intelligence agencies around the world also believe there’s a there there. In other words–contrary to what Trump would have you believe, this is not fake news.
Well, it turns out that Steele compiled another dossier that, if true, would be even more damning. In December, the former MI-6 agent gave senior UK government officials a memo that claimed, among other things, that a number of the hackers recruited to break into Democratic computers were paid by the Trump campaign.
This new information came to light in a roundabout way, after Steele was sued for defamation by Russian venture capitalist Alexej Gubarov, who is named in the dossier as a key player in the hacking. The Guardian, one of the UK’s leading newspapers, recently learned that earlier in the month, Steele’s legal team disclosed the existence of their client’s December dossier in a legal filing. Read it here.
Steele claimed that in late summer 2016, four Trump operatives flew to Prague for “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers.” Among the items on the agenda were arrangements for under-the-table payments to these hackers for breaking into Democratic computer systems, as well as “contingency plans for cover-up operations.” These hackers were reportedly responsible for sending viruses, planting bugs, and stealing data from Democratic leaders.
Reportedly, these hackers were under the command and control of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s administration–but were paid by the Trump campaign. Indeed, according to the memo, two of the hackers were reportedly “recruited under duress” by the FSB, the Russian secret police.
It didn’t take Steele long to understand the ramifications. In his filing, he contended that the information he gleaned potentially had “considerable importance in relation to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election,” and had “implications for the national security of the US and UK. For those reasons, he felt obligated to ensure that top officials in London and Washington “with responsibility for national security” knew about it so it could be “analysed and further investigated/verified.” To that end, Steele handed it to “a senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity” in December.
Calling this story explosive would be an understatement. If this is at all true, operatives from an American campaign paid agents of a foreign country to interfere in the election. Additionally, if this is at all true, then this is at the very least on the same level of criminality as Bridgegate. Remember, there is no chance that anyone on Chris Christie’s staff would have even contemplated shutting down lanes on the George Washington Bridge unless Christie fostered an environment in which this sort of criminal behavior was even remotely acceptable. Additionally, it would have never happened had Christie exercised even cursory oversight over his staffers.
So far, this story hasn’t gotten much traction on this side of the Atlantic, which is surprising given Steele’s sterling reputation in both the United States and the UK. The only American outlet to pick this up is Daily Kos, and one of the few American newsmakers talking about it on social media is Howard Dean.
UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow https://t.co/We82rd4FgU
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) April 28, 2017
It’s too bad. Americans need to understand that at the very least, we are once again faced with asking questions about our president that we should not even have to ask. When that’s the best-case scenario, that isn’t a good sign.
(featured image courtesy Mike Maguire, available under a Creative Commons BY license)
